LinkedIn Gets A Facelift With New Desktop Design

LinkedIn says its new look will deliver a faster, simpler and more intuitive user experience across both desktop and mobile.

The desktop redesign, which LinkedIn describes as the largest since the business-focused social network’s inception, required a “complete overhaul” of the site’s technology architecture and aims to create more value for users.

The company also promises faster innovation across platforms as the new technology stack shares the same front-end API’s as the LinkedIn mobile app.

LinkedIn 2.0

So, what’s new? Well, the navigation bar has been revamped to include seven core areas: Home, Messaging, Jobs, Notifications, Me, My Network, and Search, with an additional ‘more’ icon providing access to resources such as LinkedIn Learning.

Furthermore, the news feed has been fine-tuned through a combination of algorithms and human editors to only provide “the most relevant content from people and publishers you care about the most.” On top of this there will be new ways for users to dive further into specific topics and follow trending stories.

There’s also greater insight into who’s viewing your content, more intuitive search options to connect you with the right people and posts, and better suggestions to make your profile stand out from the crowd, such as suggested skills that should be added based on what recruiters are looking for.

Finally, the site’s responsiveness is significantly improved as, unlike a traditional web app, the new design is built on a single-page application so doesn’t require full-page reloads.

In mid-2016, LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft in a $26.2 billion (£18.5bn) deal as the Redmond firm held off competition from four of its big rivals, rumoured to be Salesforce, Google, Facebook and IBM.

The deal came just weeks after 117m LinkedIn user accounts were put up for sale online, including that of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, stemming from a data breach dating back to 2012.

Quiz: The history, products and people of Microsoft